


From Afar

by KatLeePT



Category: Labyrinth (1986)
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-03-10
Updated: 2016-03-10
Packaged: 2018-05-25 21:17:29
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 871
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6210433
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/KatLeePT/pseuds/KatLeePT
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>He has always watched over her.</p>
            </blockquote>





	From Afar

He watched her from afar. He watched her grow up and put away childhood things. He witnessed her second love and knew he would never be as great for her as he was. He saw her become a woman and danced at her wedding, then cried when no one was looking.

She grew older with every passing year, but somehow, she also grew more resplendent. He'd never seen a creature such as she. Oh, he had wooed many women, both mortal and greater, but he'd never known another woman like Sarah Williams. If he had, perhaps then he could have stopped watching her. Perhaps he could have ceased hiding from her in her own reflection in the mirrors that graced her bedroom, the one above her bathroom vanity, and even the little mirrors on the strange vehicles she drove. Perhaps he could have stopped watching; perhaps, he could have saved himself.

He watched her bury the man she'd told the world she loved while never taking, or even knowing, the last name of the man with whose life her own had truly been destined to intertwine. He watched her shy away from the public and watched, too, when she began to live again. He was the first to dance with her when she wore a red dress again. Its sequins curved perfectly around her aging but still voluptuous body. The song to which they danced seemed familiar, but she could not place it. He would not allow her to as his Goblins played in human forms and he himself took command of her body and soul for such an utterly little time.

She would not bend to him, and he knew it well. Still, he continued to watch over her from afar. A small portion of the heart she had once accused him of not possessing continued to hope that maybe one day, before her fragile, human life ended, she would come to realize how greatly she needed him and all the wonderful things he could give her. Perhaps she would one day realize that she had never been happy without him for only he could supply her true and full joy.

The night she wore the red dress was only the second time he had danced with her, but he took her hand again on many occasions. He danced with the mother of the bride when her daughter married and swept her a fourth time across the floor when her son wed. Every time, he wore a different mask, a different face so that she never once recognized him. Each time, she asked him if she knew him, but every time, he avoided her questions and danced away her suspicions.

When she laid in bed late at night, feeling lonely despite the wine she had drank, it was he who came to her in the shadows. His arms were the invisible embrace she felt. He eased her into sleep and held her through the night. By morning's light, he was gone, and she only remembered crying herself to sleep.

He never left a trace of himself that she could see, but just before sunrise, he would walk through her garden. He would touch her plants. The weeds would wither away, and her flowers, especially her roses, bloomed. Occasionally, she would see tiny footprints from where his subjects had followed him, but never once did she suspect that they belonged to a creature of the underworld and not just some random animal. She enjoyed her garden, loved smelling her roses most of all, and he took calm joy in the delight he witnessed in her.

When she grew sick, he was there, still hiding and watching over her. She saw a mist approach her bed several times, but she never saw his face. Once, she called out for her dead husband, and though it pained him and he withdrew for a time, he never let her see how wrong she was. He held her hand when she passed in the night and caressed her beautiful face one last time.

He watched over the proceedings that followed, and when her children laid her in the cold, hard, and mortal ground, he finally withdrew back to his castle. It did not stop there, however, for every day he had watched over Sarah Williams and now he could no longer witness her beauty or her life without him. He spent one final year terrorizing his Goblins, trying to bring a better world to his people, and secretly searching for a way to find Sarah's soul, but a year after he had watched from afar as her people had lowered her body into the ground to never be seen again, the King of Goblins disappeared.

He's never been seen since, but his subjects still remember him. They still tremble at the sound of his name, and on cold, lonely, and still nights, they say you can still hear a strain of the song to which he first danced with his mortal soul mate. They say it can be heard, and they know one day, he will return. Perhaps when he does, they will finally have a Queen, and the whole land will rejoice.

  
**The End**

**Author's Note:**

> All characters within belong to their rightful owners, not the author, and are used without permission.


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